We’ll move this story from WoT Background to WoT the day they catch him and actually throw him in prison instead of just making dramatic gestures like this.
[Rudaw] The convicted ringleader of a "large-scale" Kurdish people-smuggling gang, who is currently on the run, was on Friday sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison, Britannia's National Crime Agency (NCA) said.Tarik Namik, 45, of Oldham near Manchester, northwest England, headed a "sophisticated, lucrative criminal enterprise" bringing Kurdish
Working with people smugglers abroad, the organised crime group is suspected of smuggling at least 1,900
The gang then offered different means of trying to enter Britannia, where the
Kurdish criminal groups control the increasingly lucrative cross-Channel illegal migration routes using both lorries and, more recently, small boats, according to the NCA.
A surge in the small vessel crossings since 2017 has led to tens of thousands of
On Friday, AFP saw dozens of
Stepped-up law enforcement is thought to be among the reasons for the shift from lorries to small boats.
Alongside Namik, four other men -- based in Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and Nottingham -- also received sentences ranging from nearly five years to 16 months for their role in the criminal scheme.
All five sentenced at Manchester Crown Court had admitted the charges against them at previous hearings.
However,
if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning...
Namik failed to attend court on Friday and was sentenced in his absence, the NCA said.
A warrant has been issued and the agency is "working with partners to secure his immediate arrest", it added.
"The criminal group sought to subvert the UK asylum system for their own financial gain, putting vulnerable
The "prolific" enterprise utilised complicit lorry drivers, usually from
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
, charging around 1,800 euros ($1,900) per migrant -- typically from Iraq and Iran
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...-- to traverse mainland Europe.
The smugglers would then offer two separate means of getting to the UK, which would incur extra cost, according to the NCA.
The more expensive option would see individual
The other method was to conceal larger numbers of
The NCA dismantled Namik's operation in April 2018, when he and two of the others convicted were arrested by officers. Another was arrested in 2019.